Manually Installing Xorg

Background

I typically install Xorg manually on my computers with a simple apt-get install xorg; however, this pulls in all drivers - most of which I do not need. This post shows how to install Xorg in a more minimalistic approach.

Details

We first need to find the video card (and driver) for your video card. You can do this with the following command:

find video card: lspci | grep -i --color 'vga\|3d\|2d'

The results of the above command should be something similar to the following:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

In the above output, “00:02.0” is the device id.

Once we have the device id, get more details on the card with the following command:

get card details: lspci -v -s DEVICE-ID

The above command should return something similar to the following:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 43
        Memory at fe400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
        Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        I/O ports at dc00 [size=8]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915

You will want to note the Vendor (“Intel Corporation” above) and the Kernel driver in use (“i915” above).

You can now install Xorg with the following:

install Xorg: apt-get install xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xserver-xorg-video-(yourcard: can be intel, nouveau, or ati)'

Notes

If you have tips or feedback please let us know.